I am a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere Institute for Advanced Study (2024-2027). 

I am a researcher of purpose in life and class tutoring (also known as homeroom teaching and form tutoring). I am also interested in teachers’ professional ethics and school pedagogy, on which I have written two books (see Tirri & Kuusisto, 2019, 2022).

I am currently leading the MOTIproject “Towards professional class tutoring and a motivating school community”, funded by the Kone Foundation and Tampere Institute for Advanced Study (2024-2027). The MOTIproject addresses the problems of young people and schools by developing class tutoring pedagogy. The project will support the well-being and life purposes of both class tutors and young people. MOTI is an interdisciplinary and multi-method research project combining research and art, and bringing together the research traditions of life purpose, youth studies and school pedagogy.

I also run Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) “Ethics education for future teachers” with researchers from Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic, Comenius University Bratislava in Slovakia and Tallinn University in Estonia. 

In 2019-2022 I led a Finnish-Dutch study on the life purposes of higher education students (e.g., Kuusisto ym., 2023).

At Tampere University, I am also a University Lecturer, specializing in diversity and inclusive education. I hold Title of Docent (Associate Professor) at the University of Helsinki. Before coming to Tampere, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki (2011-2018), as an Associate Professor at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecth, the Netherlands (2018-2019), and as a Senior Researcher at the Tallinn University (2018-2019).

I am on the editorial boards of the Journal of Moral Education and the International Journal of Children's Spirituality.